Friday, March 8, 2013

Fairness is part of Character

7:30 pm, Every Night at my houseConsistently

Other people do not always have the same opportunities we have, and it is not fair. My children are a good example of this. Every week they have story time at the library, a playgroup at the community center, and gymnastics at the Seattle Gymnastics Academy. In a few months, they will be going with me once every two weeks to the community garden where I will teach them how to care for plants. I have just enough activities scheduled to stimulate and develop my children, without over-scheduling them.

Before I put them to bed, we have story time with books, songs, and art projects. The stories and songs are about fairness, respect, feelings, work and kindness.

We also take them to three different children's museums. They play in sand, water, climb rocks, and manipulate objects. We even have a membership to the zoo, where the boys learn about wildlife, pet farm animals, and enjoy puppet shows. Our children are privileged, not because they are more deserving than other children, but because they won a genetic lottery.

All of the activities develop a child's intellect, talents, abilities and social skills. From gymnastics they improve motor development, balance, and social skills. The children's museum cultivate their minds. From story time, they learn vocabulary, grammar, how to listen and follow directions. Hand puppets and dramatic play develop their analytic thinking and social skills. Children with these activities have a distinct advantage over other children whose parents do not do these things for their children.

When we ask, what is fairness, the response you get will tell you a great deal about the respondents moral character. Character is a diamond that scratches and carves every other stone around it. Likewise, fairness effects everyone else. A person of good character understands fairness treats all people with honesty, respect, and gives them equal opportunities to succeed.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL?

One of the things that bothers me is that certain people do not take the right decisions for their children, and as a consequence, their children do not get the same opportunities as others. This is difficult because the children must pay for the parents failures. We take our boys to a very large gymnasium. The gym was built in a poor/immigrant community because the land was cheap. The daily fee is not expensive, and it is even less if you donate a can of food at the door for the food bank. You would expect to see many children from the immigrant community present. After all, they live in the area.

After several months at this gym I can say confidently that we never see the poor or immigrant children there. My personal belief is that their parents either do not know about the facility or do not care. The poor families are not unfit parents. But what they are doing is choosing not to give their children extra advantages in life. These activities build skills, confidence, and character. They are setting their children up, and not giving them the best that they could to help them excel in life. Several years later when my children are pulling straight A's, excelling in sports or what ever may interest them, their children will be playing video games. I bet that these are the same people who will cry - "privilege! not fair! check your privilege"

The poorer children's parents are given opportunities. Sometimes, we have to get our butts out of bed, get a good routine, switch things around in life, and do what we need to do to make sure that the kids get the activities they need to develop. Having lived in a couple other foreign countries, I can tell you that opportunities are everywhere in America. Oppressed people are often times choosing not to take advantage of them. It is not our job to bring them to the activity centers, hold their hand, and show them how to do the things they need to do for their children. All parents, poor or rich, have to take personal responsibility and get their butts out of bed on the week-ends. If they have another job - find someone else to take the children to the activity center. Think creatively and find a way. That is what I have been doing all my life, so why can't they?

WHEN TO STOP CARING ABOUT FAIRNESS?

Fairness is something we should always care about. Treat others the same way you would want them to treat you. The gymnastics academy gives lower income families to opportunity to bring their children and pay a small amount. The poor parents are being treated fairly, they are choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities - therefore they have no room to complain. We cannot force them.

We should continue being fair, without lowering the bar. Being fair means that we keep the standards high, and give others opportunities to meet those standards.

SOME PEOPLE ARE IMMORAL

Those who do not value fairness at all, are of poor moral character. Caring about other people is the building block of morality. Without that, we are left with criminals, crazies, angry people, and conspiracy theorists.

Fairness is important because all people deserve to be treated with respect, but is not the only thing that makes up good character. Hard work and diligence are also just as important. I do not like having to get up in the morning, pack a tandem stroller, diaper bag, and go out into Seattle weather every single day. Sometimes, I hate taking the children to their activities, as a human being I get tired too. No, scratch that. I get exhausted. At the end of the day I am so fatigued, that just laying in bed with the computer is my greatest pleasure.

As exhausted as I get, I do it anyway because I love my children and want them to have the best. I am going to put my children first no matter what. But when I have the time, I do what I can for other children.

At the end of March, I am baking two cakes for a children's therapy center. They are having a fund raiser, which includes an open bidding for cakes. The table that bids the most chooses the most desirable dessert first. I am going to make a Turtle Cheesecake and Black Forest Cake. (will insert pictures after fund raiser).

I do this because I value fairness. The money from my cakes will help pay for a child's therapy.

Last year, I donated a basket of handmade soap to the White Center Food Bank for their Fall Harvest auction. From the silent bidding, the food bank made $50 from my soap. (Actual Basket featured to the right.) All I had to do was put together a basket of soap I had been making over the year. It was very easy and took only fifteen minutes of my day.

Although I am far from perfect, and know I have faults, I wish that other people would stop thinking about their own egos and instead, think about what they can do to help someone else. I want my children to follow my example that first, establish boundaries, care about family first - and then give what you can to help the disadvantaged. This is what moral people do.

Immoral people will never do a thing for someone else.

THE IMMORAL, UNEDUCATED AND HATEFUL

Take a close look at the following Twitter comment: From what we see online, it is easy to see that the world is full of stupid people who care only about themselves, without a thought to anybody else.

Although the topics discussed on Twitter are not directly relevant to the concept of fairness, what they do is show how ignorant and hateful many people in this world can be. The poster, scourge, is very good at deflecting from relevant issues. He is probably the kind of man that does not even know how to argue fairly with his partner (presuming he even has one). If he cannot argue fairly with perfect strangers, why do it with anyone else in life?

Not only does this man not value fairness or morality, but his arguments are non-linear and scattered. I could tell almost instantly that this person does not have a lot of education. Educated people can construct focused thoughts and stay on the topic. This man cannot do even that.

"Disproving women being illogical" - Take a look at this sentence structure. If one writes, "Disproving women being illogical," - then you are saying women are logical. It is called a Double Negative, this is an elementary grammar mistake.

As this man clearly failed sixth grad grammar, lets presume he is trying to say women are illogical.

There is no argument to be had here because the statement is a wrong. Some women are illogical, some men are illogical. Instead of being unfair and stereotyping an entire gender, this ding-bat could say something more fair, something like this: "Some people are illogical." One could even say, "some women are illogical, and some men are illogical."

"Women give birth to babies" - Yeah, and the cost of rice in China is 50 cents per pound - this has what to do with Aurini sleeping with a married woman? That is as logical as saying "Melons are round, therefore, sleeping with a married woman is okay" The world is full of facts, randomly stating a fact is not the same as an argument.

"Men do things to get status to convince women to get their seeds." - I bought two packets of oregano seeds for my garden yesterday. And what does this have to do with Aurini sleeping with a married woman whilst preaching his brand of morality from the YouTube pulpit? Nothing.

"You have been reduced to a baby factory" - Goodness, scourge thinks that having children is something woman are 'reduced to'. Did you ever think that maybe I chose to have children? I love and enjoy them? Wow - to think that child-rearing is something a person is 'reduced to' shows very little regard for family life.

I am not surprised this is the type of doofus Aurini is friends with. Birds of a feather flock together. These people do not care about fairness. They are concerned with boosting their own ego, stroking their own ego, and congratulating themselves on being masters of the universe. This is why I pick on both feminists and MRA - they are no different. Slinging mud at an entire gender of people is just plain stupid.

To conclude this blog, I will add that although life is not fair - Fairness is a Value. We are not perfect, but we should try to do the best we can for as long as we can. Anyone who stereotypes millions of people, or demonstrates that they do not care about fairness is a degenerate, low person that has very little to contribute to human progress.

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